A campaign that wins a confrontation must be ready with a concrete demand the target can grant, or the victory is wasted.
Rule twelve of Rules for Radicals, paraphrased. Alinsky warned that an opponent may suddenly give way and ask what the organisation wants, and that a group without a specific, achievable answer loses both the moment and its credibility.
In practice
- A student protest forces a meeting with the head teacher and, asked what it wants, produces a list too long to grant, so nothing changes.
- An angry customer who is offered a remedy on the spot, and has not decided what would satisfy him, leaves with nothing.
- Possible explanations
- One explanation is that institutions can act only on specific, bounded requests. Another is that a concrete demand gives both sides a way to end the conflict and claim success.
- In its favour
- Consistent with negotiation research and with Gamson's finding that challenging groups with limited, specific goals succeeded more often.
- Against it
- Specific demands can narrow a movement and invite co-optation, and radical critics argue that insisting on grantable demands confines change to what the powerful are willing to give.
- Standing
- Compare the Piven–Cloward disruption thesis, which weighs organisation against disruption.
- Subject
- Law & Politics
- Essay
- Rules that restrain power, and advice on using it